Newbie. Here.

[CANON]

Hi to everybody. been trying to leather carve now for some weeks. i eventually paid for some lesson,s and have certainly improved, if there's one thing for sure i have learnt is to be careful in what i purchase. seems to me carving leather comes in three size,s small medium and large. all of which you need the correct size stamps, and beveler,s. my first purchase was from tandy,uk. which was the beginners set, which to my horror, when i got them home, the packet said made in china, the quality was poor to say the least i have now bought some craft stamps from australia, which are at a fair price. these stamps are over 30yrs old and of good steel. i have also bought some from barry king. the question being is can you regrind the old stamps and put sharper bevels on them, and are these stamps stainless steel. thank you.

[LeatherNerd]

If they're Tandy stamps there's a good chance they're chrome plated, non-stainless steel. Stainless steel is nonmagnetic so a quick way to tell is to stick a magnet to them. If it sticks, they're not stainless.

I'm new, too (about 5 months in) and all of my stamps are the cheap plated Tandy ones. So far my carving skills are so poor that I doubt better tools would make a difference. I'll eventually start buying nicer tools but for now I'm resigned to using the cheap ones.

The chrome plating is just there to prevent rust, so if you are willing to put up with the maintenance hassle of oiling your stamps, you could grind them. Before using them on leather, make sure they're absolutely clean (I'd swish them with alcohol or other thinner, then dry VERY thoroughly, to ensure no oil could get on the leather to stain it). When you're done with them rub them with an oily rag to put just enough of a coat on there to stop oxygen from getting to the steel.

A lot of old stamps used to be handmade by grinding steel nails, so there may be a well-known process for caring for unprotected stamps. The veterans on here might know.

I haven't bothered to grind mine as I am very lazy about setup and cleanup hassle, though I live in Utah which is extremely dry--unprotected steel kept indoors can go months or years without rusting. Given that one of the most popular words to describe weather in the UK is "damp", however... your mileage will almost certainly vary.

Lastly, I'll leave this up to more seasoned folks here, but I don't know how sharp a beveler should actually be. Mine all have a slight rounding to their corners and they're not meant to cut the leather; they're meant to smoosh down one side of cuts made with the swivel knife. The rounding on the edges also makes it easier to "walk" the tool and get a smooth bevel without getting "cut lines"where the toe of the beveler curves away from the face of the cut. That said if your kit contained the "Basic 6" (or 7 or 8 or whatever), your veiner, background tool, and the inside of your camouflage stamp SHOULD have crisp edges.

OH! One last thought: consider posting pics in here of your tools (with closeups of the tool surfaces). Tandy has an unlimited lifetime warranty on their tools (at least over here; I imagine it's the same over there--you'd need to call them), and if other folks here agree that you got an exceptionally bad lot, you could send them back. Granted, you'll just get another set of cheap Tandy tools in return, but you might get a much better (or less awful?) lot.

Best of luck,

Dave